Asia News

Missing AirAsia Jet Likely Sank, According To Officials

Indonesia’s top rescue official says the missing AirAsia jet probably sank based on radar information from the plane’s last contact.

Searchers are still unsure of where the plane is located and assistance from other countries may be required to conduct an underwater search.

[quote text_size=”small” author=”– Bambang Sulistyo” author_title=”Head of Indonesia’s national search and rescue agency”]

Because the coordinate that was given to us and the evolution from the calculation point of the flight track is at sea, our early conjecture is that the plane is in the bottom of the sea.

[/quote]

The search for AirAsia Flight QZ8501 continued on Monday, the day after the jet disappeared in Indonesian airspace with 162 aboard. It is not known if weather played a role in the disappearance, although rescuers say it will likely be a factor in how fast the plane can be located, according to CNN.

The missing commercial jet was flying from Surabaya, Indonesia to Singapore went it went missingn over the Java Sea between the islands of Borneo and Belitung, a shipping channel with shallow waters.

Before losing contact with air traffic control, one of the pilots requested to fly at a higher altitude due to theweather.

Malaysia, Singapore and Australia have joined the search, which has evoked the same mystery and grief surrounding the Malaysia Airlines jetliner that disappeared over the Indian Ocean nine months ago, according to the New York Times.

While it is still too early to compare the disappearance to that of the Malaysian jetliner that disappeared in March, authorities were unable to explain why the AirAsia jet vanished from radar screens 40 minutes after leaving Surabaya.

The aircraft had 155 passengers as well as two pilots, one engineer and four cabin crew. Along with Indonesian nationals, three passengers were from South Korea and there was one passenger each from Malaysia, Singapore, Britain and France. Seventeen passengers were children and there was one infant aboard, according to NBC News.

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